How are mobile web browsers developed?

Question

Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer are mostly written in C++ (rendering engine, javascript engine and UI)

But when it comes to their mobile app versions, have they been written in native programming languages (Android-Java, iOS-Swift/Objective-C) or have they been adapted with cross-platform tools?

Thanks ☺

Answer 1

@Burey; that's the direction I would've gone, had you not been here with an answer already :)

Here's building Firefox...including the Mercurial repository, etc:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/Simple_Firefox_for_Android_build

Answer 2

@Prince Saini: woah! great blog post! I never thought creating a web browser for android was that simple 😮! I wish I knew how Chrome and the others were developed though, but thanks a lot for this tutorial, I'll try it out later :D

Answer 3

@Calvin, that makes sense, cross-platform would be your best guess then, thanks :) will keep looking for this answer, hopefully with official data :)

Answer 4

@Ulisses Cruz: Thanks for your response. I read Wikipedia before and I wasn't able to find the development details for mobile. If you did find it I'd appreciate it if you could point out where it says so. Thanks again!

Answer 5

Check out this article
http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2013/11/create-android-web-browsing-app.html

Answer 6

@Kirk Schafer Firefox's explanation was so explicit! So they need native language for the front-end and C++ for the back-end, thank you so much! and @Burey too! I wish I could mark 2 answers as best 😅😊 thanks again you guys are great ☺👌

Answer 7

@prince siani : thanks alot for sharing that

Answer 8

could you be looking for this?

https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/get-the-code

Answer 9

@Burey hahaha I agree :P truth is if Kirk or you answer my questions there's a high chance one of you will get marked as best. You're super helpful, really, thank you both 😊👌

Answer 10

Kirk, two answers are always better than one :)
Paola, if we had 2 we'd want 3 xD

Answer 11

here's a Wikipedia article explaining that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_browser

Answer 12

When come to build a low level system access powerful apps, Java or Objective C is not the option. It should be developed by C++. Many mobile apps are built on C++.

Answer 13

Use Xamarin to build cross platform apps using C#.

Answer 14

u need android studio